WANG Wei, LIU Wei, YANG Xianfeng, XIE Zhipeng

(State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, Department of Materials Science Engineering,Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China)

Abstract:An innovative processing route for fabricating colored Y-TZP has been developed based on heterogeneous nucleation method. The Y-TZP particles were coated by hydrates of Co and Al with the thickness ranging between 10-40nm and a blue CoAl2O4/Y-TZP composite was prepared after sintering. Due to the reduction of the mass transferring distance during sintering, the heterogeneous nucleation significantly reduced the volatilization and improved the uniformity of coloring elements in ceramics. Our research proves that the heterogeneous nucleation method can facilitate solid-state reaction by shortening the mass transferring distance, guaranteeing uniform distribution of the new phase in matrix and keeping the color bright.

Key words:heterogeneous nucleation method; composite ceramics; spinel